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NC(I) should modify name: EC

J. Venkatesan

Name would create confusion in the minds of the electorate

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Wednesday disapproved the name of National Congress (Indira) given by K. Karunakaran for his newly-floated party holding that it was capable of creating confusion in the minds of the general public and the electorate with the Indian National Congress.

Stating that such confusion in turn would have an adverse impact on the purity of the election process, the Commission in its order advised Mr. Karunakaran to modify its proposed name and approach the Commission. After Mr. Karunakaran named his party as NC (Indira), the Congress party raised objections and after hearing both the parties, the Commission gave its verdict today.

The Commission said that in the normal course, there should be no objection to the use of the words `Congress' and `National' individually. "But here it is the use of these words in combination along with the suffix `Indira' that is the root of the problem."

It said even if one were to go by the argument of NC (Indira) and assume for a moment that it would restrict its activities only to Kerala, a contradiction that immediately "becomes apparent is the insistence to retain the `National' tag to its name.

On the argument that different factions of Kerala Congress and Janata Dal existed as separate political parties, the order said that in the case of splits in recognised political parties, such splinter groups were registered showing their linkage to the original party.

But here it was a new party as per its own claim and in these circumstances it could not draw analogy with these cases.

"A political party cannot adopt a name that is similar to the name of an existing party assuming that the literate people would be able to distinguish between the two. The very reliance on the literacy status of the voters to avoid confusion points towards the potential danger of causing confusion at the first instance," the order said.

Referring to the argument that the name of the party was not used on the ballot papers and hence the question of confusion did not arise at the polling station, the order said the election process did not start and end at the polling station.

"The mobilisation of support starts much ahead of the poll. The campaign of a party starts as soon as the election becomes imminent, if not earlier. It is during such campaign that the political parties propagate and publicise various issues, which would naturally include the name of the party and its candidates," the order said.

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